portrait processing practice

A couple friends got married this weekend. They weren't super interested in hiring a photographer and the expense involved. I was standing up in the wedding or I would have offered to shoot it for them. I put out a call on flickr for some local shooters who were willing to work cheap and offered to do the processing myself to keep the price down. They ended up getting a professional photographer who has shot plenty of weddings in the past. He just does 4 a year now because he doesn't like the schedule of a working wedding photographer, but he still enjoys shooting the happy occasion. So he got $300 for the day instead of what is typically more like a $2,000 expense. What I got was a massive load of RAW files shot in a manner very different from how I work. I would NOT recommend this to anyone else. I'll put in a few solid days of processing (which is fine.....they're friends, but I don't really ENJOY processing photos....at least not a few hundred at a time).

Anyways, to speed things along since most are well composed and exposed reasonably well, a lot of them are just getting presets with minor tweaks. It still takes time. There's a few that are particularly challenging and I'm spending more time on them. I thought I would share my misery with all who are interested. He took a bunch of flash portraits of the bride that are I guess fairly straight forward flash portrait photography. The problem is my friend Kari is a blast to be with and is a very pretty girl, but she is also quite human and the effects of a flash are not kind even on the most perfect of skin.

I have set up a dropbox account with 5 photos that are the best of the bunch. You can pick any that you would like to work on and process them in any way you see fit. You can try one or you can try them all. You can do one "treatment" or you can try 10. It's really just a way for everyone to try something new and maybe a bit out of your comfort zone. Maybe you'll learn a new technique that you may be able to put to use one day for yourself. Feel free to just consider this practice. If you get some that you are happy with, I'd ask you to share them here and would also like your permission to use them in a book I plan on giving to them. You can do them just for fun or you can try to compete with the other entries to see who's gets chosen by me (or possibly the bride and/or the groom).

So let's see what you can do. She's really a smiler, so she has a lot of smile lines and wrinkles around the eyes. Spend as much or as little time as you want. Keep it fairly straight and traditional or go over the top. It's all for fun and try to learn something new.

Sorry for my confusion about terminology. Apparently I spend my time on the internet in different ways from you two So thanks, I have corrected the post title.

And actually, when the photographer arrived and knocked on the door, he was let in and got more than a handful (pun intended) of photos that are NSFW. Kari is the type to not care, but he deleted them regardless.

hehe you should post this at RFF and wait for all the pros to come swooping down on the attack about the destruction of the pro-photo business by people like you

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Pro photographer's need to step their game up if they are worried about losing out on work. These friends of mine were going to hire NO photographer. I got them to hire one for the wedding AND one for the rehearsal dinner. Great wedding photographer's will always have work. Good ones should be able to find work, too. If the advancement of camera IQ coupled with more amateurs taking jobs, it will be the poor and mediocre photographers losing the jobs. Natural selection is the law of the land. I'd love to have a job where I could show up for 7 hours and get paid $300 in cash.

But we're getting off topic here. I understand your point and theirs, but complaining about the state of things, doesn't change them.

I like 9755, very nice shot, but maybe next is practice those retouching skills

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wt21......these are untouched RAW files. They are supposed to be flawed. I have set these files here for those interested in trying some portrait touch-up techniques without any pressure. Play with it for awhile and see how good you can make it. It's surely not everyone's cup of tea, but it's best to practice before you get to Carnegie Hall.

wt21......these are untouched RAW files. They are supposed to be flawed. I have set these files here for those interested in trying some portrait touch-up techniques without any pressure. Play with it for awhile and see how good you can make it. It's surely not everyone's cup of tea, but it's best to practice before you get to Carnegie Hall.

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"If you get some that you are happy with, I'd ask you to share them here and would also like your permission to use them in a book I plan on giving to them."

Sorry. I COMPLETELY missed that we're supposed to do your pictures for you :tongue:

i almost did that one
actually, i did
but then i decided her eyes looked great, but her mouth almost looked frustrated... then /i/ got frustrated at my total lack of ability to use the retouch brushes in aperture to try to degrayify the sides of her forehead. i couldnt get the color right without looking super obviously cloned over.. so i gave up and moved onto my #2 image

i just started in silver efex
i did 1 version, then totally started all over and did 2 more
then i went in and did a color efex one trying to get a bit wedding bride glowy, but keep the eyes popping

i thought this one kept her looking the most like HER

but im me, and i HAD to do crazy contrasy stuff and make her into what would lead you to believe a much darker featured gal

but it looked a little flat, so i went back again to try and get some depth to her face

then the color version, as i refused to give up on having one, lol

if you do happen to like any of these, i may have to redo them, as i noticed during the last one that i had tweaked her eyebrows in the version i was editing them all off of, and if you blow it up to crazy pixel levels, you can tell! LOL!

--- edit ---

christilous tilting made me go mental and have to tilt mine, too!
then i realized, it almost looks like it was UNtilted before, the earing has some sway in it, and if you line that up straight, then the dress on the shoulders is even as well!

---edit---

ok, i still wasnt happy, so i redid the last sepia but with less contrasting tones so it seemed more her natural coloring, in a few tints

drats!
in honor of your signature, i was going to get a screen shot of all the nik pts all over the place, but i totally forgot!